‘So do be a love, Nicephorus, and have the boy killed for me.’
There was an explosion of horrified protest. I heard the scrape of more loose mosaic tiles as Nicephorus got to his feet, and another creak as Priscus got up.
‘Oh shut up, you fuckwit Syrian!’ he snapped. ‘I’m not asking for much. Just kill the little shit. I imagine that loser Balthazar is still leeching money out of you? Well, it’s about time he and his friends did something tangible to earn their keep. Just make sure that, when it is done, there is nothing that a full commission of enquiry can pin on me.
‘Do that, dearest heart, and you can shuffle, unaudited, round this glorified cowshed till you retire — or your “researches” reach some triumphant conclusion and I have to grovel to you.’ Priscus laughed. He may have picked up another of the fallen book rolls.
I pulled my head right down as he turned and walked in my direction. I didn’t breathe — Martin didn’t breathe — as he hovered just inches from where we cowered. I heard the crackle of papyrus and a snort of contempt. I heard the book hit the floor and unravel. Then, Priscus was walking quickly back to the door. I heard him stop just beyond it.
‘I’m doing you a mighty favour, Nicephorus,’ he said. ‘Do as I ask, and I’ll stand by you all the way to Hell and back. Fail me, and I’ll put you there myself.
‘Yes, my dear little man,’ he said after more whining from Nicephorus, ‘I’ll get myself to sleep by composing his funeral speech. It’ll be the finest thing Athens has heard since Demosthenes topped himself. I’ll deliver it with a ripe onion cupped in my hand.’ He paused again and sniggered. ‘I really am counting on you, Nicephorus — don’t let me down!’
I heard the sound of his feet on the beads as I counted him down the stairs. There was a loud sobbing over by the desk. For the first time, I noticed the loud splattering of water from a broken downpipe outside the window. But Balthazar was now clambering out from behind his hiding place, and he was trying to jolly some appearance of manhood back into Nicephorus.
‘Those were most ungracious comments,’ he said when Nicephorus had finally unclamped both hands from his face, ‘particularly, I might observe, as they applied to me! Nevertheless, you can be sure that I looked fully upon His Magnificence the Senator Priscus, and I saw the Hand of Death on his shoulder. Did you not see how old he has become in just two years? He will not trouble us much longer.’
‘That’s what you said about him at the beginning of the month,’ Nicephorus sobbed. ‘But he’s here.’ He went down on his knees again. ‘And you haven’t seen the blond boy. He’s read all the public wisdom of the ancients. He’s big and strong enough to crush a man’s windpipe in one hand-’
‘Silence!’ Balthazar cried with a dramatic upward sweep of both arms. ‘Can you not feel it? Are you not aware of the Presence in this room? I tell you, Nicephorus of Tarsus, we are not alone!’
Beside me, Martin froze. For a very short moment, I thought of getting myself right down again on the floor. But it was just more fraud to silence the Count. Balthazar was uttering another stream of gibberish in what I knew must be a made-up language.
‘I watched the boy’s arrival in Athens,’ he said with a dismissive wave. ‘Using powers that are allowed only to me, I have looked into his mind. He is a dirty savage, fit only to smear butter into his yellow hair. Before you waste time on killing him, let us call on the Goddess to take him and his vicious debauchee of a friend together out of this world.’
A dirty savage, I can tell you, would have been straight out from where I was hiding, to crush a windpipe in each of his hands. I, of course, merely noted that the deal Priscus had offered wasn’t to be taken up.
Now Balthazar was walking away, towards the far door that led into the upper depths of the residency. He stopped and looked back at the Count. ‘I have told you that so many bishops in Athens are displeasing to the Goddess,’ he said. ‘Their endless praying to the Jewish Sun God has caused a disruption in the Force. Let us, then, pray as arranged for Priscus and the blond youth to be destroyed, and for the council never to meet. It will please the Goddess. Surely then, she will crown all our long efforts with success.’
I could see Nicephorus looking up at him with a face that glistened with tears in the lamplight. He didn’t seem terribly convinced.
But Balthazar was now setting to work with the tones and gestures common to the ministers of every religion when confronted by less than total conviction. ‘Come with me, Nicephorus, Count of Athens,’ he declared thrillingly. ‘Let us consult the Goddess while the heavens are still washed clean.’ He reached out for the door handle. There was a loud scrape as he pulled it back open, and he vanished into the darkness.
I pulled my head down as I heard a soft moan and what may have been a prayer from Nicephorus. I could see the moving reflection on the glass bricks overhead as, lamp in hand, he hurried after Balthazar.
Chapter 20
Martin and I huddled together a while longer in the silence that resulted. At last, when it seemed clear that the door wouldn’t open again, I got up carefully. ‘Well, come on,’ I whispered, taking him by the arm. ‘Don’t you want to know what they’re about?’
It was a worthless question. Martin sagged forward over one of the bookracks and farted again. His face was in shadow, but I could hear his terrified whisper about the need to get out of here. He pulled his face out of the shadow and reminded me that Sveta was still waiting with Maximin.
‘Very well,’ I said impatiently — if she couldn’t get a frightened child back to sleep, she wasn’t the woman who could sometimes frighten even me — ‘you stay here and wait.’ I hurried over towards the door. I kept to the side of the room, ready to jump under cover if the door opened again.
As I stepped into the renewed darkness of the corridor, I heard a padding of feet behind me.
‘You’re mad, Aelric,’ Martin groaned. ‘What do you think you’ll say if we’re caught?’
I stopped and spread my arms. I slapped my now dry chest. ‘I am the Emperor’s Legate,’ I announced. ‘If any explanations are needed, they won’t be mine.’ I hurried forward.
Trying to control his heavy breathing, Martin tagged along behind me. We had no lamp with us, and it was a matter of relying on the moonlight and on my own recollection of what was about us.
I didn’t suppose they were heading for Euphemia’s room. Hadn’t Balthazar said something about an appeal to the sky? Sure enough, opposite the niche where Demosthenes continued his burst of silent eloquence, a door was now open. I looked up about a dozen steps to another open door that led on to the roof. I crept up and looked quickly out. This part of the building was covered by a double roof. The door opened on to a path of nailed lead sheeting that went, in deep shadow, between the two roofs. To my left, the path terminated in a wall of crumbling brick. I stood and listened. I could hear a gentle sigh of wind on roof tiles, but nothing more. Leaving Martin to follow at his own pace, I darted to the right, making sure not to step in any of the puddles or disturb any of the heaps of shattered tile that covered the path.
It was hard to match the roof to the corridors and rooms that it covered. There should have been a turn right at the end of the path. This would have taken us on to the roof covering the back block of the residency. Instead, after the beginnings of a path, progress in that direction was closed by another wall. I could only go further if I went back and climbed a ladder that went all the way to the top of the left-hand roof. As I set a foot on the lowest rung and tested its strength, Martin clutched at me.
‘Let’s go back,’ he pleaded. ‘Can’t you feel the evil all about us?’
‘Oh, shut up!’ I answered. ‘Stay here and be ready to make a dash if I hurry down.’ I tested the next rung, and then the next. The ladder had been here a long time, and the wood was rotted through in places. Though reinforced with iron bars, these too had rusted, and one of the rungs sagged under my weight. Even as I was ready to pull myself to the top and look over, Martin clamped both arms about my middle and pressed a hot, sweaty face into the small of my back.